Building the shop - Slide out wall cabinet

I originally had a set of metal framed shelves that I stored all of my cans and bottles on. Small cans stored on deep shelves were too often forgotten or hard to get at and I was wanting something better. I got the inspiration for this cabinet from a poster on another forum who built slide out racks to fit into his shelves. I decided to reclaim some floor space and make a wall cabinet that incorporated several slide out shelves.

Like my other cabinets, this is built from 3/4” Baltic Birch. Each of the slide outs is mounted on a pair of standard 100lb full extension drawer slides set parallel to each other on the back, and fastened to the base cabinet by an internal frame, similar to what you would use between the drawers on a wide base cabinet. I cut all of the false fronts from a single piece of 1/4” Birch plywood, and fastened them to the slide outs with Fastcap Adhesive/Activator system. It worked very well and gave me a nice grain matched front. I made the two left slide outs wide enough to hold a gallon can or bottle (7 1/2”), and the other three wide enough for a quart bottle or can (5 1/2”). Each slide out has adjustable height shelves.

This was the first project where I figured out every detail from the start using Sketchup. As it turned out, I was glad I did as I had miscalculated on my width originally and had to add a few inches to make all of my slide outs fit.

I like the look of the cabinet. I could probably use something like that. I have a concern though. What happens if a can on one shelf falls and catches against the next shelf? How deep (if any)is the inset on the back of the shelf?I too would like some clarification on the slides. Do you have two slides on the bottom? If so is there anything to keep the top from tipping.Hope I am not asking too many questions.

There are no slides on the bottoms, just the two on the back. The slides are show in the sketchup drawing as the horizontal bars. They are full extension side-mount slides They are made for drawers, but there isn’t really much outward stress on them so they work fine in this application.

It is possible (although it hasn’t happened yet) that something would extend out from one of the slide outs and get stuck against the support for the next one, but if that happened, you’d just have to remove the slide out that it is stuck against and push it back.

Thanks, if I would have seen your post before I posted mine, I wouldn’t have asked you about the slides.My wife came home as I finished typing, and I didn’t click the post button until I came back. If I build something like this I think I will include some kind of rail. It certainly looks like it would save me some space. I am liking the visibility of the different bottles and what not on the shelves.

Great idea Lee, I like how you kept the grain of the plywood oriented to make it look like a continues sheet. How deep did you make the individual shelves? Allows like to ask now that its together any changes you would have made if you were to do it over? Thanks Pat